By 1968 Toots Hibbert and the Maytals were Leslie Kong’s flagship act on Beverley’s Records. “54-46 That’s My Number,” written after Hibbert’s imprisonment on a marijuana charge, was a Jamaican smash — the number, the BBC obituary notes, referred to his prison number. Kong’s productions for the group in this period — rocksteady giving way to the slower, heavier reggae beat — included the single whose title would enter the language.
The word
“Do the Reggay” was a dance-craze record in the mould of “Do the Rocksteady” and “Do the Ska.” Hibbert later explained that “reggay” came from “streggae” — a street term for someone down on their luck — and that he shortened it for the song. The New York Times, in its 2020 obituary, called him “the first to use the word reggae on a record.” The BBC’s headline on his death put it plainly: “the man who coined the word reggae.” Whether the genre needed a name or simply found one in a Maytals title, the association stuck for life.
Leslie Kong’s studio
Kong, who had produced Desmond Dekker’s “007 (Shanty Town)” and would cut the Maytals’ next run of classics, recorded “Do the Reggay” alongside contemporaries like “Beautiful Woman” and “Sweet and Dandy” in the same fertile window, per the Encyclopedia.com discography. The rhythm was reggae before the charts called it that; Hibbert’s voice — church-trained, soul-broken, always pushing — was its clearest instrument.
Why it matters
Every history of Jamaican music passes through this moment. Bob Marley would carry reggae to stadiums; Toots Hibbert supplied the word.
Listen and dig deeper
- Browse Toots Hibbert and Toots & The Maytals in the JamaicansMusic library.
- Previously: The Maytals form in Kingston (1962). Next: ‘Monkey Man’ (1969).
Sources: BBC News — “Obituary: Toots Hibbert — the man who coined the word reggae” (Sep 12, 2020); The New York Times — “Toots Hibbert, a Father of Reggae, Is Dead” (Ben Sisario, Sep 12, 2020); The Guardian — “Toots Hibbert obituary” (David Katz, Sep 12, 2020); Encyclopedia.com — Toots and the Maytals.
Editor’s note: This entry is part of the JamaicansMusic online museum — a career timeline assembled from the archive. It is dated to the era it documents; every claim is drawn from the linked sources.